Long Term Control Plan – It’s time has come!

As reported in the Times Union by Brian Nearing, history was made this past Thursday when Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens announced the signing of the consent order amongst the Albany Pool communities and their respective Sewer Districts to an agreement known as the Long Term Control Plan (LTCP). The LTCP is focused on reducing the amount of sewage that flows into the Hudson River after heavy rainfalls cause the river to be unswimmable and a potential health hazard.

The plan, which is nearly $140 million in Capital Improvement projects over the next 15 years with 90 percent of the work within the next 10 years, is a remarkable project in that six different communities have come together and have committed to sharing the burden of this project during the term of the agreement.

This effort started back in 2003 when I was Mayor of Cohoes. At the time, the city could not afford a full-time engineer so I would attend the meetings on behalf of the city and I found the issue to be interesting and the potential costs daunting. Thanks to the leadership of the six communities, with assistance from DEC, we were able to fund a study that identified the causative items that were the most contributory to the contamination of the river. Working with DEC and the communities we were able to identify a plan within each community that would address the common goal of reducing contamination. Most importantly, through the assistance and guidance of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDRPC) and its leader Rocky Ferraro, we were able to provide several public forums throughout the process to keep the public informed and to solicit public comments. Fortunately, 10 years later, we have a work plan in place.

I want to thank and acknowledge DEC for their willingness to work with these communities, the local government leaders who understood that this was the right project for the Hudson River and at the same time they continued to look out for the ratepayers, and Rocky Ferrao and CDRCP for all of their hard work and continued support of this effort. In this day and age when there is criticism for too many governments, I commend the Albany Pool communities of Cohoes, Green Island, Watervliet, Troy, Rennselaer and Albany for stepping up and doing the right thing for the environment, the ratepayers and their residents!